Ahmad Jamal Ballades 2019

Ahmad Jamal will turn 90 this year, and his late career work has been consistently strong. 2007's It's Magic, 2011's Blue Moon, 2013's Saturday Morning, and 2016's Marseille are all fine outings. Playing in a quartet of piano, bass, drums and percussion, the extra percussionist seems to play perfectly with Jamal's innate sense of rhythm.

This time it is different. This time it is solo piano (with bass on three tracks). And from what I know and can research of Jamal's discography, this is a first. These ballades (a term used by Chopin to describe his short single movement piano pieces) are beautiful, and recorded beautifully. Pressed on heavy vinyl at 45 rpm, the sound is stunning.

The tracks were recorded in 2016 while Jamal was in France recording Marseille. There is actually a fourth version of the song Marseille on this set (there were three versions- two with vocals- on the Marseille release). There's a new solo version of the Jamal favorite Poinciana. There are only three Jamal originals in the ten song set (one is the composed-while-recorded Because I Love You), and lots of classics from Rogers and Hart, Cahn, and Mandel. All done in these pristine solo piano versions by the master of rhythm, subtlety, nuance and expression.

Jamal takes a melody apart like no one else. Sometimes he stretches things far from the root, while other times he plays so very close to the lyric. In fact, lyrical might be an excellent description of his playing. This is a really beautiful record, both a new expression and one consistent with Jamal's lovely body of work. Ahmad Jamal has been known to call jazz "American classical music". I don't know if it is classical, but it is classic all the way.